In recent years, there are increasing occasions to generate photograph images by sensing an image with a prevailing digital still camera and outputting the image with a color printer. Under such circumstance, lately image processing is becoming intelligent-oriented using attribute data or the like, which is given along with sensed image signals.
For instance, image processing apparatuses which perform image processing based on inputted image attribute data are known (e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (KOKAI) No. 2001-167260 and 10-210311).
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (KOKAI) No. 2001-167260 (Document 1) states that it is desirable to execute appropriate processing (exposure correction) in accordance with data (image attribute data) related to an object of shooting in an image, rather than executing fixed correction processing without considering a characteristic of the object of shooting in the image. More specifically, according to Document 1, an image accompanied by image attribute data, e.g., whether or not the photograph should emphasize a “complexion” of a person, which is set in advance, is subjected to exposure correction with respect to the complexion of the person. This enables appropriate exposure correction with ease without darkening the person's face in the image, even if the person is photographed with a white wall on his/her background.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (KOKAI) No. 10-210311 (Document 2) discloses a technique of executing appropriate processing by estimating an object of shooting in an image based on information related to a focal length obtained in image sensing, which accompanies the obtained image. More specifically, according to Document 2, if a focal point is on a distant view, the image is assumed to be a landscape and a soft spatial filter is used. If a focal point is on a middle distant view, the image is assumed to be a portrait. If a focal point is on an extreme near view, the image is assumed to be characters (document), and a sharp spatial filter is used and intense masking UCR processing is performed to improve quality of the characters.
However, the image attribute data accompanying an image, which is described in Documents 1 and 2, is not necessarily given as uniform data. Furthermore, it is not ensured that the attribute data is always appropriate for the image. For instance, assume that a distant view mentioned in Document 2 is sensed and the image is assumed to be a landscape. However, an erroneous operation may designate inappropriate attribute data, e.g., attribute of a portrait (“complexion” in Document 1), to the sensed image.
Meanwhile, recently rapidly prevailing digital cameras allow an operator to designate an image sensing mode, e.g., a portrait mode, a landscape mode, a nightscape mode, and so forth, by using a switch or a button provided on the camera main body. When a portrait sensing mode is set in a digital camera of this type, the image sensing condition is set in an aperture-priority exposure, automatically setting a rather shallow depth of field, so that while a person is in sharp focus, a background is in soft focus, throwing the background nicely out-of-focus. On the other hand, when a landscape sensing mode is designated, the camera is automatically set to achieve a rather deep depth of field, and camera processing is performed so as to achieve a rather high sharpness.
As described above, there is a possibility that image data accompanied by inconsistent attribute data may be subjected to unexpected inappropriate processing in the course of intelligent control achieved by adaptive processing of a printer, e.g., performing portrait adaptive processing on a landscape image.
In some cases, there is a possibility that an operator may perform image sensing with a mode that does not match the actual scene including an object of shooting. Particularly for an operator who is not familiar with a camera operation, the frequency of such erroneous operation tends to be high.